Scotland

The occupation at the Prisme packaging factory in Dundee has continued
into its sixth day. 12 workers were sacked without notice last
Wednesday. They were given their P45s along with letters stating that
although the management accepted they were owed thousands of pounds in
redundancy payments, holiday pay and other monies due, “Unfortunately,
we do not have any money to make these payments to you." The letters
“kindly” advised the staff to go down the route of contacting Citizens
Advice and to take the “alternative route” of a tribunal to get the
money due to them. No doubt, the company hoped the workers would go home
quietly. They were wrong.

On Wednesday 4 March at 5pm, their last day of employment, the workers
took the courageous decision to occupy the factory, to demand what was
due to them and to expose the shabby behaviour of the directors of the
company. David Taylor, one of the sacked workers said, “They treated us
like second class citizens and wanted to wash their hands of us – we
were not prepared to accept this.”

Like rats deserting a sinking ship, the managing director had resigned
two days before the workers were sacked – probably in an effort to avoid
liability. The solicitor representing the remaining director refused to
tell the staff who in fact owned Prisme, claiming the director was not
the major shareholder. After the workers investigated further, it turned
out that 85% of the shares had, up to a year previously, been
transferred to a company called GO Automatics, which was registered at
an address shared with a Chartered Accountants, Dand and Carnegie in
Dundee. Alan Dand was named as a director of GO Automatics.

Despite trying to contact Alan Dand and being told variously that GO
Automatics no longer existed and Alan Dand was no longer the director,
the workers refused to give up. Members of Solidarity and the
International Socialists went to the offices of Dand/Carneigie on Friday
and asked to speak to Alan Dand. He refused to come out to talk but, via
his secretary, we passed on the message that unless Alan Dand phoned and
met with the workers, we would have no choice but to come back in the
afternoon with protestors and the media as well. He called the workers
20 minutes later and arranged to meet representatives of the staff that
afternoon.

It now seems that Alan Dand as a Chartered Accountant held the shares
for which he was being paid £3,500 a month by Prisme. This, it seems,
was because the owners of Prisme feared the company was going to be in
difficulties and wanted to protect themselves by transferring the shares
out of their control. It is estimated that they will have paid Dand’s
company £40,000 for this service, while claiming they have no money to
make redundancy payments.

All of this is apparently legal. It shows how company and employment
laws are weighted heavily towards the interests of the bosses and at the
expense of the workers, who now face up to a 6 month wait and the
decision of an industrial tribunal to see if they will get what is
justly theirs

Widespread support

The workers’ defiant action in occupying the factory has received
national press coverage and huge solidarity from young people, workers,
trade unionists and socialists across Scotland, Britain and
internationally. They spoke at a meeting of the CWU in Dundee on
Saturday, organised to highlight the scandal of the threat of Royal Mail
privatisation. Over £300 was collected at the meeting and many other
donations have been made, as have solidarity visits to the factory by
trade unionists in Dundee, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. A group of
the workers are travelling to Glasgow on Monday to speak at a Solidarity
public meeting with Tommy Sheridan and others.

Members of the International Socialists and Solidarity have been heavily
involved in supporting the workers’ occupation, as well as organising
political support. “The support we have had has been brilliant, it has
made us feel a million times stronger. We have had people sleeping over
with us, bringing food, organising collections. We would still be
waiting now to speak to Alan Dand if you had not gone down to his office
to demand action.”

The occupation, which still continues, has shown that workers will not
be walked over by the bosses and employers. As David Taylor says: “We
were not militant people – just little people who refused to be little
anymore. We stood up for what we believe in and we are all proud of
that.” The workers have demanded that the books of the company be open
to inspection to see what the real state of the company was when they
were sacked. While pursuing their legal rights for the full payment of
what they are due, a number of workers have now agreed to pursue the
possibility of setting up a workers’ cooperative to ensure a
continuation of employment.